Central Europe Trip, Day Four

We awoke early on day 4 to leave Prague and head to Dresden, Germany, about 2.5 hours away.

This proved to be our least painful bus ride of the trip.

Allied aerial bombing towards the end of World War II killed thousands of civilians and destroyed most of city. We only had one day in Dresden, so we spent it in the historic inner city which has been almost entirely rebuilt. It is like walking into a fairy tale since everything looks so picture-perfect and new.

Dresden Frauenkirche is a beautiful Lutheran church originally built in the 11th century and destroyed in 1945 by Allied forces.

As far as possible, the church – except for its dome – was rebuilt using original material and plans, with the help of modern technology. The heap of rubble was documented and carried off stone by stone. The approximate original position of each stone could be determined from its position in the heap. Every usable piece was measured and catalogued. A computer imaging program that could move the stones three-dimensionally around the screen in various configurations was used to help architects find where the original stones sat and how they fit together.
Of the millions of stones used in the rebuilding, more than 8,500 original stones were salvaged from the original church and approximately 3,800 reused in the reconstruction. Reconstruction was completed in 2005.

Paul and some of the students paid to go to the top of the dome. This is a gorgeous picture of the Elbe river and some of the historic city. We also ate lunch along the banks of the river. It was a beautiful day.

My 4 Euro bottle of water during lunch. In Europe it means something different when you say, "I'll just have water," in a restaurant!

I enjoyed the sculptural trees throughout the city.

The production of porcelain at Meissen, near Dresden, started in 1710 and attracted artists and artisans to establish one of the most famous porcelain manufacturers, still in business today. It was fun to window shop in Dresden, even if things were way too expensive for me. The students managed to find H&M, of course!
The Fürstenzug (German for "Procession of Princes") in Dresden, Germany, is a large mural of a mounted procession of the princes of Saxony, made out of 25,000 Meissen porcelain tiles. Somehow, the picture was only minimally damaged in World War II.

The Semperoper or opera house is an amazing sight! The building style itself is debated among many, as it has features that appear in the Early Renaissance style, Baroque and even features Corinthian style pillars typical of classical Greece…definitely eclectic!

As a group we visited the Historic and New Green Vault. It was a girl’s (who used to fantasize of becoming a princess) dream come true.
The Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) is a museum that contains the largest collection of treasures in Europe. It is a part of the Dresden castle. It was founded by August der Starke (Augustus II the Strong) in 1723. It is often referred to as a walk-in treasure chest. It contains nine rooms, each with its own exhibition theme. Of course, we were not allowed to take pictures, but this link will take you to their website and a cool slideshow of the rooms. My favorite, not surprisingly, was the “jewel room”. Ahhhh, the jewels!

http://www.skd.museum/en/museums-institutions/residenzschloss/gruenes-gewoelbe/historisches-gruenes-gewoelbe/index.html

This is a picture from the pamphlet:

We had a nice dinner at the Hotel Novalis in Dresden and slept well in anticipation of heading out to Krakow, Poland in the morning